Azure acquires 3 Mexican metals projects

West Perth-based metals explorer Azure Minerals Ltd has acquired three potential gold, silver and base metal projects in northern Mexico, which it aims to continue to explore, the company announced today.

The full text of a company announcement is pasted below

Azure Minerals Ltd (ASX: AZS) today announced the acquisition of three new projects in the state of Sonora in northern Mexico, covering a total area of 26,650 hectares (266.5 km2). The new 100%-owned projects La Tortuga, El Ermitaño, and La Providencia are all located within 150 kilometres of Hermosillo (see Figure 1), where Azure has located its established exploration team and administration office.

The acquisitions support Azure's initial program of target identification and regional exploration and represent potential for epithermal vein style, high grade gold, silver and base metal mineralisation, and bulk tonnage porphyry-style copper-molybdenum mineralisation.

Azure Managing Director, Mr Tony Rovira, said the Company will be carrying out further exploration on these projects as a matter of high priority, while continuing to generate new opportunities to acquire more 100%-owned projects.

Azure identified several areas considered prospective for metal deposits and applied for three new mining concessions covering these districts. The properties contain strong evidence of mineralisation, including historical mine workings, anomalous surface geochemistry and mineralised drill intercepts, and each is adjacent to an existing mine or advanced stage exploration project.

However, despite the obvious prospective nature of these properties, they have not been systematically evaluated by modern exploration methods.

"These tenements are a fantastic addition to our Mexican portfolio and really highlight the nature of the Sierra Madre belt," said Mr Rovira. "The region contains numerous world class copper, gold and silver mines, yet there are readily available mineralised prospects just nearby, like the ones we have acquired, that have not had systematic modern exploration techniques applied to them at all."

"Acquisition of these projects reflects the growing strength and competitive advantage our team gives us in Mexico," he said.

Azure's project acquisition program is continuing to evaluate a number of other prospects.

"We are in a great position in Mexico with an established onsite team to rapidly progress exploration and prospect evaluation," continued Mr Rovira. "Our plan is to capitalise on the strong international interest in the area with our growing exploration portfolio."

Highlights of the new mining concessions include the following:

La Tortuga

• 5,208 hectares (52 km2)
• Previous drilling by Teck Cominco in 2005 reportedly returned a mineralised intercept of 100m @ 0.25% copper. The drill hole collar and samples from this hole have been found and the presence of copper mineralisation confirmed.
• Contains numerous abandoned mine workings with visual copper mineralisation
• Located adjacent to the El Tecolote copper-zinc-silver mine (1.55Mt @ 1.8% copper, 6.9% zinc & 50g/t silver)

El Ermitaño

• 12,636 hectares (126 km2)
• Borders the Santa Elena epithermal gold-silver mine (6Mt @ 1.7g/t gold & 70g/t silver - 330,000oz gold & 13.5Moz silver)
• Located 15 kilometres along strike from the San Felipe polymetallic mine (4Mt @ 300g/t silver, 10% zinc & 7% lead)
• Extensive alteration system contains epithermal veins and breccias exploited by historical mine workings

La Providencia

• 8,816 hectares (88 km2)
• Borders the Ramard project, where recent exploration by TSX-listed Colibri Resource Corp intersected massive sulphide hosted high grade silver-zinc-lead mineralisation (eg, 4.5m @ 158g/t silver, 10.8% zinc & 2.6% lead)
• Contains historical mine workings hosted in the same geological setting as Ramard

Azure's regional exploration strategy is based upon utilising a combination of state of the art hyperspectral satellite imaging known as ASTER-SWIR ("Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer - Short Wave Infra Red" imaging), public domain data, and surface reconnaissance exploration. Geological data published by the Mexican Department of Mines describes numerous historical mining occurrences within the new tenements, which Azure has confirmed by site visits.

Azure's field personnel have completed initial assessment of the project areas, confirming the presence of numerous epithermal vein style precious and base metal occurrences and widespread hydrothermal alteration systems in favourable geological settings. In addition, the areas are also prospective for porphyry style copper and molybdenum mineralisation, as evidenced by the drill hole intercept at La Tortuga. Soil and rock chip samples displaying visual mineralisation have been collected and despatched for geochemical analyses and results are awaited.

All three applications were made by Azure's 100%-owned Mexican subsidiary Minera Piedra Azul SA de CV and are expected to be granted within the next three months. Meanwhile, Azure will continue to carry out surface exploration activities, as is allowed under Mexican mining law. Mexican concessions are granted for both exploration and mining concurrently, for a 50 year period. The modern mining legal system in Mexico offers a high level of security over mineral rights and a royalty free mining environment.

These new projects fall outside the Strategic Alliance Area of the joint venture between Azure and Geoinformatics Exploration Inc (TSX-V: GXL) and as such do not form part of that joint venture.

OTHER MEXICAN PROJECTS

Azure also holds 14 other projects in Sonora, Mexico in joint venture with Toronto-listed Geoinformatics Exploration Inc (TSX-V: GXL).

Under the terms of the joint venture agreement, Azure must spend US$4 million on the projects by July 2009 to earn a 51% interest.

Approximately US$2.5 million has been spent to date. If GXL elects not to contribute at that stage, Azure can increase to a 75% interest in all projects by sole funding a pre-feasibility study by July 2011.